When The Dust Settles
by LokiOfSassgaard
Summary: When Odin banishes both Thor and Loki to Midgard, the plan seems simple at first. After alienating those who try to help them, it becomes clear that getting back to Asgard won't be as simple as finding a fallen hammer in the desert. Stranded in a realm that has forgotten their gods, Thor and Loki must prove their worth to return. Canon-divergent AU - contains comic elements.
1. Chapter 1

It wasn't supposed to go like this. They were never supposed to even make it to Jotunheim. They were never supposed to face Laufey, and they certainly weren't supposed to start a war. Something had gone horribly wrong. Heimdall was supposed to stop them at the Bifrost. Odin was supposed to yell and scream and shout before the bridge was ever even opened. Odin was supposed to be angry, but not like this. This was never in the plan. This had gone too far, and now neither of them could go back. They were hurled from the observatory, stripped of their power, and with no idea where they were going. They fell together, both screaming in pain and fear and rage.

Thor hit the ground first, only seconds before Loki landed near him. Loki stayed on the ground, watching blearily and confused as Thor jumped to his feet, only to have some giant machine crash into him and throw him back to the ground. Loki tried to get up, but when three people emerged from the machine, he stayed low, watching as they threw blame over who had caused the machine to strike him. Not wanting to be seen, Loki tried to draw a cloak over himself, to make himself invisible, but that magic was no longer available to him. Not sure what to do, and not wanting to make any hasty decision, Loki stayed down on the ground where he wouldn't be seen.

Seeing Thor get back up again filled Loki with a strange relief. Still, he stayed where he was, in the darkness outside of the machine's bright lights. Thor spun around, growling about his hammer and making demands of the terrified locals. When he pushed the locals too far, Loki wasn't surprised that one of them drew a weapon. When the weapon laid Thor flat out on the ground again, Loki finally rushed to his feet to go to his brother's aid.

"Is he dead?" he asked, looking down at Thor's prone body.

"Jesus Christ!" The girl who had bested Thor spun round and pointed her weapon at Loki. Having seen how easily it defeated Thor, Loki jumped back and held his hands up, showing them empty.

"I ask again. Did you kill my brother?" Loki said calmly.

"Aw, fuck," the girl said, backing away. "I-no. I don't think so. What the hell are you doing out here?"

Loki looked down at Thor again, and then up at the sky. He didn't know the stars or their constellations, or anything of the dry, cold desert he stood in.

"I don't know," he admitted slowly. "Where are we?"

He knew he was repeating Thor's question, but he hadn't actually heard an answer he understood.

"New Mexico? How wasted are you guys?" the young girl asked.

The older woman with her swatter her on the arm. "Darcy!" she scolded quietly.

"What?" the girl called Darcy asked. "You took us out here to look at a Pink Floyd Laser Light Show, and then you ran over Shaggy and Scooby."

"Darcy!" the other scolded again.

There was a third in their company; an older man at least twice the age of the women. He frowned down at Thor and sighed deeply.

"This is your brother?" he asked grimly.

Loki looked back down at Thor, and realised then that Thor had been stripped of not just his power, but his armour as well. He lay there in his woollen under garments, still unconscious in the sand. Loki realised he was also without his own armour, wearing little more than a black tunic and trousers. He figured it was no small wonder he felt the cold of this realm so acutely.

"Yes," he answered after a moment, trying not to shiver. Not even Jotunheim had felt as cold as this place did. But on Jotunheim, Loki was a different man. He wondered if Odin had not only stripped away his power, but everything that made him Asgardian as well.

"Okay, come on," the man said, trying to herd Loki over to the large machine nearby. "I think we need to get you both to a hospital."

"We were abandoned here," Loki said, suddenly realising it to be true.

The man leading him to the machine stopped and looked at him closely in the dark.

"Who abandoned you?" he asked quietly, before looking over his shoulder at the desert around them. But Loki knew he'd find nothing, so he shook his head in response.

"Okay," the man said, opening a door at the back of the machine. "You're freezing. Get in the car."

Loki obeyed, figuring it would be easier to figure out where he was before trying to make any move to try to get back to Asgard. He half expected them to leave Thor out in the desert, planning to come back for him in the daylight, but he was surprised to see Thor get carried into the back of the machine by the other three.

"Uh," Darcy said, looking into the machine at Loki. "Can I ride up front?"

Her older companion - possibly her father, Loki suspected - looked down at her, and then at Loki and nodded. "Yeah, I'll sit in the back," he said, before climbing in and sitting in the seat across from Loki.

As they began to leave the area, they all sat in silence. Loki looked at his hands in the dark, thinking that his skin looked blue in the dim light. But it was just that, he knew; dim light. It made everything look blue. He knew that under brighter light, his skin would be fair and normal. He knew it because nobody had yet shrieked and cried monster.

He listened as the small group began to nervously talk, but said nothing himself. The man was called Erik, he learned, and the older of the women was called Jane. They were nervous and frightened, worried about something called cops. He understood the word "prison" though, though he didn't know what crime they had committed to be worried of such matters.

"So, uh," Erik said eventually, turning his attention away from the women, and toward Loki. "Your brother. He said his name was Thor."

Loki wasn't sure if it was a question or a statement, so he only answered with a shrug.

"And what do we call you?" Erik asked.

Loki shook his head and looked away. "It doesn't matter," he said.

He could still feel the chill of the realm. He wrapped his arms around his chest, still trying not to shiver. His tunic was wool, but it was also very thin, and did little to keep him warm. It wasn't meant for warmth, but to keep leather and armour from chafing and blistering his skin. He had felt cold before, but never quite like this. It felt as if it was seeping into his bones through his pores, as if to slowly freeze him from the inside out.

"Hey, Jane. Turn the heater up, would you?" Erik asked.

"This is as high as it goes. It doesn't really work very well," Jane said. "Sorry. We'll get there soon, I promise."

Erik sighed and took off his coat, but Loki refused it when he handed it over. He hated that he was so obviously cold, but he didn't want to admit to it as well. But Erik didn't give him much of a choice. He sat forward and put the coat over Loki's shoulders. Loki accepted it, only because he was too cold to resist it.

The hospital Jane took them to smelled of sickness and disinfectant, but it was warm inside. Loki watched nervously as Thor was taken away, and tried to follow after, but the healers wouldn't let him. Instead, he found a seat along the wall and sat while Jane and Erik gave the woman behind the desk all the information she asked for.

"He said his name was Thor?" Jane said, unsure.

Erik leaned in closer to the woman. "We haven't been able to get much out of the other one. He says they were abandoned out there."

The woman nodded. "I'll send a nurse to take a look at him."

Erik nodded and stepped away from the desk. He wandered off down the hall a ways, before returning with a folded blue blanket from a cart. "I'll trade you," he said, offering the blanket to Loki.

Loki had forgotten he'd been wearing the man's coat. He took it off and traded it for the blanket, forgetting about pride and wrapping himself up in it. It was thin and scratchy where it rubbed against his neck, but Loki was still cold enough to ignore it.

"Try to stay out of trouble," Erik said, before leaving with the women.

A few minutes later, a man in a blue tunic and trousers came over and sat down beside Loki. He held something small in his hand, and had a few other devices hanging over the back of his neck.

"How you doing?" he asked easily.

Loki regarded him suspiciously. The other three, he had little choice but to trust, but this man was new, and Loki didn't like his cheery demeanour.

"Fine," Loki asked stiffly.

"I was told you were out there in the desert tonight. Can I get your temperature, to make sure you didn't get too cold out there?" the man asked.

"If you must," Loki said warily, wondering if he'd be forced to anyway if he said no.

"Just need you to open your mouth for me," the healer said, holding the device up. "And this goes under your tongue."

Loki took the device from him and looked at it for a few moments, before complying. When the healer closed Loki's mouth around the device, he considered fleeing, but before he made up his mind, the device beeped, and the man took it away.

"All right," he said, nodding and writing something down on a piece of paper. "You guys been drinking tonight? You take anything?"

Loki frowned, not entirely understanding the question. "No," he said.

The man nodded again, and kept writing. "Okay. You think you could tell me your name?"

"No," Loki said, looking away. "We're done."

The man nodded patiently. "Okay. You just let anyone know if you need something."

He got up and took the paper to the woman at the desk, but Loki ignored what they said. He tried to get comfortable in the hard chair. He was beginning to feel tired, but didn't dare sleep where he was. Not where so many could spy on him and molest him. When it became clear that his week, mortal body would not let him push his limits like he was used to doing, he quietly got up and searched for a quiet place to try to sleep. This hospital was a place of healing, and he knew he'd find beds eventually. When he found an empty, dark room, he slipped inside and laid down on the strange, inclined bed. He expected it to be uncomfortable, but even sitting up as much as he was, he fell asleep almost instantly.

He went the entire night without being bothered, and it wasn't until shouting rang out in the corridor outside that he woke up. For a moment, Loki forgot about the horrors of the previous day, until he saw he was still in some strange, sterile room. The shouting outside grew louder, though, and soon he recognised Thor's grunts and growls amongst them as objects began crashing to the floor in the corridor. Leaping from bed, Loki rushed out to follow him, staying well behind him as he led a trail of destruction through the corridor and outside. Once out on the hard ground outside, Loki recognised the realm at once. Blue sky, single yellow sun.

Odin had banished them to Midgard. Groaning at the bad luck of it, Loki started to chase after Thor.

"Thor!" Loki shouted, catching up to him.

Thor turned around, and in that moment he was distracted, Jane Foster's car moved into him, knocking him to the ground. Unable to believe what he'd just seen, Loki covered his face and tried not to laugh as three familiar humans scrambled out and surrounded Thor.

"I swear I'm not doing this on purpose!" Jane shouted.

"Do it a few more times. It might knock some sense into him," Loki said, making the other three jump. When he saw the distrustful look on Erik's face, Loki pointed to Thor where he lay on the ground. "He's the one who caused the trouble. I was in bed."

"Loki," Thor growled as he started to come round again.

"I'm right here, trying not to be left behind while you lay waste to Midgard," Loki told him, kicking him lightly in the shoulder.

"Midgar?" Darcy asked, looking up at him. "Are you playing Final Fantasy?"

Erik clearly heard something else. He looked at Thor and Loki suspiciously, as Loki kicked Thor a few more times.

"Get up. You're causing a scene," Loki scolded.

"Do not kick me again," Thor warned.

Loki kicked him again.

Growling, Thor hauled himself to his feet, but Loki dodged out of the way before Thor could take a swing.

"Good. You're up," Loki said. He turned to the others, inclining his head slightly. "And thank you for your help. We'll be on our way now."

He grabbed Thor by the arm and started to pull him away, looking around them to be sure they weren't still being followed. It was only a matter of time before someone from inside the hospital tracked them outside, and Loki wanted to be gone before that happened.

"Wait!" Jane called after them suddenly. She looked at Erik strangely for a moment before following after Thor and Loki. "Wait. Uh. Come with us. Please."

"Jane," Erik said sternly.

Jane ignored him. "Some of this is kinda my fault, and well. I have some questions I'd really like to ask you. If you don't mind."

Loki looked over at Thor, and what he was wearing. He stood out against most of the other people Loki had seen during their brief time in the realm. As did Loki himself, he knew.

He knew the realm was Midgard, but it was not the Midgard he knew from childhood stories. Without his power, the humans would not treat them like the gods they were.

"I think that might be best, actually," he decided, giving Thor a tug back toward Jane's car. "Come on, brother."

Thor continued to glower and glare, but he let himself be led back to the others, and climbed into the back of the large machine. The girl, Darcy, was in back as well, sitting against the back of the seats and holding her weapon in both hands.

"Keep your hands to yourself," she warned.

Loki sat against the opposite wall. "Of course," he said. When Thor didn't respond, Loki elbowed him in the side.

"As you wish," he said lowly.

It did little to assure Darcy, but they had little else to offer her in this matter.

hr

Jane unlocked the old dealership she'd been leasing as a lab, but Thor and Loki were strangely hesitant to step inside. Loki actually stopped to examine the threshold before crossing it. Thor seemed to be trying to hide his own apprehension and confusion by holding his arms out at his sides to seem even bigger than he was. And they were both big already, though Thor was a little wider than his brother; both tall and built like they spent time in the gym.

"Jane, are you sure about this?" Erik whispered quietly. "You don't know who these people are. They could be dangerous."

Jane sighed. "Look at them," she said, pointing to them as they both curiously examined everything from a distance. "They fell out of whatever that was out there. I'm telling you. They're not from this world."

"Maybe they're from a cult," Darcy said as she found a nearby chair to sit in.

"What?" Jane asked.

Darcy shrugged. "He said they were abandoned. Not that they crash landed. They probably got thrown out of like, some weird Amish cult or something."

"There aren't any Amish in New Mexico," Jane argued.

Darcy shrugged again. "Or something," she repeated.

Shaking her head, Jane stepped away from Darcy and Erik and approached Thor and Loki.

"Do you guys... need anything? Can I get you something?" she offered, feeling strangely helpless.

"I would actually like to bathe," Loki said, looking up from the iPod he'd been examining.

"Yeah, uh," Jane said, trying to figure out how to answer that request. "There's not really a place for that. Right here. We have to go somewhere else, usually. I can get you guys some clean clothes, though?"

Loki looked over to Thor and nodded. "That will suffice," he said.

"Okay," Jane said, stepping away. "I'll just. Be right back."

She shrugged at Erik as she passed him to go outside to her trailer, which aside from the hotel room Darcy's student loans were paying for, was the only place to shower. Somehow, Jane didn't think letting them shower in her trailer would be the best thing to do. But she knew she still had some of Don's old stuff, from when he used to visit her out in the field. Some of it might even fit the two very strange men who had fallen into her life. She dug around in the cupboards beneath the bed, eventually finding the crate of Don's stuff. T-shirts and jeans, mostly, but they were clean. Rather than trying to dig through it, Jane pulled the entire crate out and took it back inside. Nothing terrible had happened in her absence, and with the brothers slowly making their way toward the back of the large room, Darcy and Erik seemed to be relaxing a little.

"Here we go," Jane said, putting the crate down on an empty patch of table. "I don't know. Uh. Find something that fits you. You can change in the restroom over there." She pointed to the wooden door, leading to the tiny restroom.

Thor got to the crate first, digging through it almost greedily. When Loki joined him, he picked through almost methodically, pulling out a pair of jeans and looking at them like he'd never seen them before. While they continued to look, Jane walked back to Erik and stood beside him.

"I'm telling you. I am on to something here," Jane said quietly.

"I sure hope you know what you're doing," Erik told her.

Jane sighed, not wanting to admit that she didn't, really. But she knew she was right. These people weren't from any cult. They probably were abandoned, but what Jane saw out there in the desert had something to do with it, and she knew it.

Eventually, Thor and Loki both wandered back to the restroom, talking too quietly for Jane to hear from the other side of the room.

"Probably getting their story straight," Erik said grimly.

"I just want to ask them a few questions, and then we'll send them on their way," Jane said. "Promise. And I did kind of hit one of them with my car a couple of times. I think we at least owe them something for that."

"You may be right about that, but it still doesn't mean I like it," Erik said.

The restroom door opened suddenly, and Loki stepped out, wearing nothing at all. He started to say something, but it was lost in everyone else crying out in surprise. Erik quickly rushed over, grabbed the jeans from Loki's hand, and used them to cover him up.

"What the hell are you doing?" he demanded.

Loki looked around, seeming just as startled as the rest of them. "There's a basin in here. I wondered if I might be able to shave," he said slowly.

"Yeah, fine. Whatever. Just get dressed first," Erik told him, keeping himself between Loki and the rest of the room.

Loki looked around for a moment, and nodded slowly. "I see. My apologies," he said before stepping back into the restroom and closing the door behind him.

"See, this is what I'm talking about," Erik hissed as he returned to Jane.

"Maybe he didn't know any better," Jane defended.

"Yeah, maybe nudity is all right in their cult," Darcy chimed in. She was still leaning over in her seat, as if hoping to get a second glance at one of them.

Jane knew Thor and Loki weren't from any cult, and sighed. "Thank you," she said anyway.

"What?" Darcy asked. "I can look."

Shaking his head angrily, Erik walked over to his luggage still under one of the tables, and began to dig through his bags. Coming up with his electric shaver, he put it on the table and stepped away again. When Loki came out a few moments later, he was at least clothed in the jeans and a small hoodie, although he seemed to move uncomfortably now, but like he was trying to hide it. He looked at the nearest table, walking right past Erik's electric razor, frowning.

"It's right there," Erik told him, moving no closer.

Loki turned back and looked over the clutter again. "Where?" he asked.

Erik looked at Jane in a mix of impatience and confusion, before walking back to Loki and picking up the shaver. "Here," he said, handing it over.

Loki looked at it, turning it over in his hands to examine it. When he found the switch on the side and turned it on, he jumped sharply, as if not expecting what happened. Unable to help feeling just a little smug over someone not knowing what an electric razor was, Jane glanced over to Darcy. Darcy looked over at Jane, raising her eyebrows knowingly. One of them was right, and even Jane was starting to feel the smallest hint of doubt in her own conclusions. But it was small enough that she still thought her theory was right.

Loki hummed as he turned the shaver off, turned it over in his hands once more, and shrugged. "Thank you," he said to Erik, an uncertain edge to his voice.

"You're welcome," Erik responded stiffly.

While Loki shaved, Thor came back out and resumed his examination of the table clutter, ignoring the others in the room. Every now and then, he'd turn back to glance cautiously at Loki, but said nothing.

"Uh. Hi," Darcy said, as Thor inched closer to her.

He looked up at her, and nodded curtly. "Hello," he said.

Darcy watched him as he moved past, picking up and touching everything that wasn't nailed down. Jane wanted to rush over and tell him to stop, but she felt vaguely out numbered, and was beginning to pick up on Erik's nervousness.

As Thor touched everything in the lab, Loki came back out to the open area, looking vaguely displeased. He handed the shaver back to Erik with a nod. "It will do," he said.

Erik looked down at the item in his hand. "Good," he said.

Loki cast a glance over to Jane, and walked quickly to Thor, pulling him to the far end of the room. He talked quietly, so the others couldn't hear them, making Jane want to step closer.

"Jane," Erik warned, pulling her back before she even realised she'd started to move.

"What?" Jane asked. "They're fine. They haven't done anything. Look at them." She looked over at them again, and was surprised to see that they looked like they'd started to argue about something.

"You sure about that?" asked Erik.

Thor stepped close into Loki's space, forcing him to either back up or get stepped on. "Yeah," Jane said, knowing she wasn't.

"You're too paranoid," Thor said loudly enough for her to hear, and for a second she thought he'd overheard them. "What can these people do to us?" He stepped into Loki's space once again, forcing him to once again step back.

"You tell them nothing," Loki hissed at him, obviously not realising their argument had got louder. "They don't need to know any of it. We'll stay here, wait until Father calms down, or Mother makes him change his mind, and we'll go home and put this all behind us. But until then, you do as I say."

Thor was starting to look pissed, and he was the sort of guy who was scary when he was angry, Jane saw. She took a small step back, crowding Erik a bit and wondering how to calm the situation down without getting between it.

"Listening to you is what got us here in the first place, Loki," Thor said. This time, when he stepped forward, Loki held his ground. He looked even scarier when he was angry.

"I told you not to go to Jotunheim!" Loki said, properly shouting now, as if their audience had been forgotten.

"You did no such thing!" Thor shouted back.

Loki threw his hands into the air and shook his head. "It's not my fault you never listen to me!" he said.

Suddenly, Thor stepped back and swung out, punching Loki right in the middle of the face. Loki stumbled back and fell over, which Thor seemed strangely surprised about. Gasping, Jane broke away from Erik and rushed over, afraid she'd find Loki dead on the floor. But he was already pulling himself up to his elbows, looking dazed and disorientated.

"What the hell was that?" he said, sitting up and covering his face with both hands.

Jane crouched down beside Loki and looked up at Thor in shock. He seemed at equal parts satisfied and worried, but Jane didn't want to get into it. As Erik rushed over to herd Thor away, Jane turned her attention back to Loki and tried to inspect the damage.

"Let me see," she said, gently tugging his hands away from his face.

After a moment's protest, Loki gave in for the most part, though he still kept poking at the already blossoming bruise around his left eye.

"What was that all about?" Jane demanded.

"Nothing," Loki said flatly.

"No, that was definitely something," Jane argued.

Loki didn't respond. After a moment, he got to his feet, swaying unsteadily, and seeming surprised about it. Not wanting him to fall over and hurt himself even more, Jane steered him toward the old sofa nearby.

"Why don't you sit down," she said, hoping he stayed there. "I'll get you some ice or something."

Loki started to protest, but Jane rushed into the old break room before he got more than a few syllables out. The break room had come with a fridge and a microwave, and after using the building in the winters for the last few years, Jane had managed to get a few more appliances installed. But right now, all she cared about was what was in the freezer. She grabbed a few ice cubes out of the ice machine's tray and put them into a towel that was on the nearby counter. By the time she went back out to the main area, Thor had broken away from Erik, and was sitting next to Loki, their argument already forgotten. She could see Thor asking Loki something quietly, but Loki only answered with a confused shrug.

"Here," she said, handing Loki the impromptu ice pack. "It should keep the swelling down, at least."

Loki took it with confusion, and didn't press it to his face until Jane moved his hand up for him. He immediately pulled it away again, looking at it as if it had bitten him.

"I think I'm fine, thank you," he said, handing the ice back.

Jane no longer knew what was going on, and took the ice pack without protest. "Uh. So. What the hell was that all about?" she asked, not sure what else to say.

"It was nothing," Thor said, sounding as if he was being coached. "We require sustenance."

Jane tried to follow that logic leap, and failed. "You hit him because you're hungry?" she asked.

When neither of them responded, she shook her head and went to go throw the ice into the break room sink. For a moment, she thought about trying to feed them from what they had there in the cupboards, but suddenly, she felt she might be safer in public. Maybe they'd be less inclined to throw punches with more people around.

"I think we could all use some breakfast," she said as she walked back out of the break room and found her handbag.

"Yeah, I'm pretty starving too," Darcy agreed.

Jane cast a pleading glance over to Erik, and wasn't at all surprised when he nodded.

hr

Loki had been surprised when Thor laid him out so easily, but even more surprising was the pain refusing to go away. He'd been punched by Thor before, and was always able to give as good as he got. But this new body was mortal, and had all the weaknesses mortal bodies had. Including, it seemed, the inability to take a punch.

While Thor ate a stack of fried cakes, Loki went for a meal that was a little more familiar. Bacon, sausage, ham, eggs; all piled high on his plate. The meat was salty and greasy, and the eggs fluffy and warm, in a way that was both familiar and completely alien.

He ignored the others while they talked about nothing, focusing instead on trying to figure out the best thing to do while they waited for Odin to change his mind and let them back into Asgard. But Loki had also been there for that conversation, and knew Thor would not be patient. Thor would want to fight his way back into Asgard, in any sense of it, screaming war cries all the way. But Loki knew screaming and fighting wasn't what Odin would value right now. It was what had got them into trouble in the first place.

For the moment, Thor had calmed down, and was even behaving almost playfully with the mortals. He even decided to show off, and smashed his cup to the floor, which went entirely unappreciated. Loki watched him casting about in confusion, and learned an important lesson.

Throwing one's dishes was not a sign of respect in this realm. Wrong as it seemed, Loki made a note to keep that in mind.

In the midst of Thor's rebuking, two more mortals let themselves into the dining hall and began talking loudly about craters and satellite crashes. At once, both Thor and Loki perked up, knowing that whatever these men thought they had found, they might have found their way home. Thor jumped up from his seat to get the location of the hammer, while Loki was already halfway out the door. Their mortal companions scrambled about in confusion, not catching back up with them until they were out at the corner.

"Fifty miles; that's a long distance in these bodies," Loki reminded Thor quietly.

Thor nodded in agreement as Jane rushed up to them.

"You own a satellite now?" she asked,

Thor started to answer, but Loki elbowed him hard in the ribs.

"I-No," he said. "But we need to get there and reclaim it all the same."

Loki shook his head, wishing Thor would shut up. "We must be going now," he said, before Thor could say anything more. "Thank you."

He turned to leave the mortals behind, and took Thor with him. He could hear the humans talking quietly behind them, but ignored it.

"We could have got a ride in her cart," Thor argued.

"No," Loki said with finality. "The more time we spend with them, the more they'll know what they shouldn't."

"What does it hurt?" asked Thor, either stupidly or being deliberately obtuse. Loki hadn't the patience for it either way.

"Look around you!" he said, stopping to gesture at the town around them. "Does this realm look like it knows anything of us? Like it needs to? Have you listened to nothing you've been told about Midgard?"

Thor shifted uncomfortably, looking around them to see what Loki saw. Loki could see him remembering, slowly and painfully, all the lessons they'd been taught of the realms. Of this realm in particular.

"Humans kill their gods," Thor recited.

"And look at us, Thor. We're not exactly fit to defend ourselves should they send a mob after us," Loki pointed out. He pulled on the hem of the hooded tunic he was wearing, reminding Thor where they were and what had happened to them.

Thor frowned and nodded. "Aye," he agreed bitterly.

Tugging Thor along by the arm again, Loki started to stalk down the street. "Let's go. There should be horses around here somewhere."

They walked through the town, finding nothing resembling stables. There were shops and places to repair their moving carts, inns and dining halls, but nowhere to rent or purchase a horse.

"What's that?" Thor said eventually, pointing to a shop that sold animals.

Loki followed Thor's reasoning. If they sold small animals, they may know where to find the larger ones. They quickly walked down the road to the shop, and stepping inside found it full of small pups, tanks of brightly-coloured fish too small to eat, and noisy, shrieking birds.

"We need horses," Thor declared, to the consternation of the man behind the counter. When it became clear that the man wouldn't be able to help them, Loki stepped back outside, and was surprised to see Jane waiting for them in her machine.

"Do you guys need a lift?" she asked, sounding strangely desperate.

Loki turned to see Thor stepping outside as well, and knowing they were out of options unless they wanted to spend several days walking through the desert, he shrugged.

"I suppose we do," he said with resignation.

She was obviously there without the permission or approval of her father, and sat nervously as she took them across the desert. It was long minutes before any of them spoke.

"I've never done anything like this before," Jane said, breaking the silence. "Have you ever done anything like this before?"

Thor chuckled. "Many times," he said.

"Thor," Loki warned from the seat behind him. He could see Thor nod grumpily, but at that moment, he didn't care about his brother's mood.

"Okay, so what's the deal with that?" Jane asked impatiently. "What aren't you letting him say?"

"Our business is our own," Loki told her flatly.

"Because you were inside that event?" asked Jane. "What, is it some sort of conspiracy we're not supposed to know about?"

"Our business is our own," Loki repeated.

Jane sighed in frustration, but stopped arguing.

The desert they rode through was expansive, bordered on all sides by mountains. They searched for something that might have looked like a landing site, going off of only the vague directions given to them by the locals. Eventually, as the sun was beginning to descend, they found what they seemed to be looking for, down in a small valley below. Loki had expected Jane to leave them in the desert, but instead, she stopped her machine and got out with them. The three of them walked to a raised hill before the valley slope, looking down in the fading light at the hastily built tents and shacks surrounding the large crater. There, they stayed, waiting patiently for the light to fade completely, before going in under the cover of darkness.

"Wait, where are you guys going?" Jane said, reaching out to stop them as they started to get up.

"To retrieve what is mine," Thor said.

Jane gaped at him wordlessly, watching as he and Loki got up and made their way down the hill, quickly and silently. Even with their mortal bodies, they still had all the training of Asgardian warriors, and knew how to move efficiently. By the time they reached a flimsy metal fence at the bottom, rain had begun to fall from a sky that had previously been clear and cloudless, telling them they were on the right track. Mjolnir would be waiting for them, right in the middle of the humans' fortifications.

Loki had expected a fight once they broke in, but he expected the humans to also be weak and pathetic. But these men were strong, and fast, and carried metal weapons with them that Loki knew to avoid. This sort of tactic, to rush in and punch everything that moved suited Thor, and he threw his weight into every swing. If Loki were in his proper self, with the speed and strength he knew was his, he knew this fight would be nothing. But he was slower, and his fists carried less weight. He could see the same in Thor, even if Thor himself didn't.

Together, the two of them fought through the soldiers being sent after them, with Thor rushing in without thought, and Loki forgetting again and again that he couldn't just appear and disappear to confuse the enemy. Eventually, he took advantage of Thor deciding to take on four men at once, and managed to slip ahead, into the white corridors that circled the crater. Loki looked around, picking directions at random until he found what they were looking for. There, in the centre, stuck in the mud and the rocks stood Mjolnir, gleaming uru metal in the pouring rain.

Thor broke through in the next moment, tearing one of the walls out of his way and coming in from the other side. He jumped down to the ground and strode purposefully to Mjolnir, grabbing her haft to lift her.

But the hammer stayed right where it was, in the mud and rock, as if it were a part of the earth. Seeing Thor straining to even move her, Loki jumped down as well, hoping to see whatever magic or trickery held her in place.

He realised it the same moment Thor did; saw the spell in the metal and knew what it meant. Thor screamed to the heavens as Loki fell to his knees in the mud, staring at the hammer and everything it represented.

When the men of Midgard came to put them in chains and drag them away, neither of them resisted.


	2. Chapter 2

The man spoke as if, in some strange way, he was mocking Thor. He spoke of places Thor had never heard of, asking questions Thor knew not to answer. He knew not to answer not because Loki had been right, but because there was no way to back up any of his claims. Mjolnir lay so close, mocking him as well, knowing Thor could never lift her. They had been cast to this realm to be abandoned and forgotten, and Thor did not understand why.

The frost giants had invaded Asgard, and no matter what Odin had said, Thor knew he was right to march on their realm and demand answers. That a battle ensued was not his fault. The frost giants had shown a severe lack of respect, and Thor had only sought to teach them a lesson, both in his own name, and in his father's. But Odin hadn't appreciated it, and Thor would never know why.

When the man called Coulson left the room, Thor thought for a brief moment that he should take Loki and escape this place, but he knew not where they would go. He realised, sitting there alone in a mirrored room, that Loki was likely just as powerless as he. He remembered laying Loki out with a single punch, and the hurt, confused look on his brother's face when it had happened. A single punch like that should not have thrown Loki to the ground so easily. It should not have left a mark that only grew worse as the hours passed. Thor had struck Loki like that a thousand times before, when his brother grew too irritating to listen to, and Loki would always bite back with stinging magic. But he hadn't. Nor had he used his magic to help get to Mjolnir. He fought with his fists, kicking and punching his way through just as Thor had.

They were stuck, and they were powerless, with no way home. The realisation hit Thor all at once, and when the man called Coulson returned, Thor only sighed and did as he thought Loki would want him to do. He stayed quiet and said nothing. Eventually, it worked, and Coulson got bored.

"We will find out what we want to know," he said, as if he thought himself threatening.

When Thor still did not respond, Coulson turned to leave the room once more.

"What have you done with my brother?" Thor asked, just before Coulson closed the door between them.

Coulson turned around, seeming almost surprised that Thor had spoken at all.

"So, he's your brother," Coulson said, and Thor realised that he might have shared information that Loki had not. "Interesting. He's fine, by the way. Just next door."

He pointed at one of the solid walls before sliding the door shut.

Thor wondered if that was meant to be some sort of test. He had got a good look at their camp as he tried to find Mjolnir, and nothing about it seemed truly solid or build to last. It hadn't even been set up to hold prisoners. He could probably tear his way out of it, and punch his way through their guards to escape.

But he knew the humans would be expecting that. Coulson had told him where to find his brother, and then left him alone. It was possible, Thor knew, that Coulson had been lying. That Loki wouldn't be just on the other side of the flimsy wall, and that tearing it down would only reveal humans with their weapons. Thor had already been shot by one of their weapons, and found it surprisingly powerful. And despite that, he did not think it was meant to be lethal. Thor was human now, he knew. Or at least, occupying the body of a human. Their weapons would affect him as they did any human, and weapons made to kill would surely kill him.

Unsure what else to do, Thor remained where he was, looking at the ground in front of him. Perhaps, he thought, if he was patient enough, Odin might see and let him come home. Perhaps Loki had been right. Perhaps that would have been the best thing to do; to find somewhere to wait quietly until Odin changed his mind. So that was what he would do. He would wait patiently where he was, and hope that Loki was doing the same.

hr

Coulson stood beside Sitwell, looking through the two-way mirrors into both rooms. The behaviour they saw now in their two prisoners wasn't exactly unexpected. They had failed whatever mission they were on, and completely clammed up as a result. For the first few minutes, Coulson had half expected one of them to bite down on a cyanide pill, but neither did.

But this wasn't what clamming up had typically looked like, either. They weren't just being defiantly silent. It was as if they had both taken their failure personally. That was what sat strangely with Coulson.

"Which one do we think will crack first?" Sitwell asked, standing with his arms crossed and looking back and forth between the two.

Coulson looked at them both. He didn't know when the second suspect had moved from his seat to sit in the far corner of the room, but the first – the one Coulson had personally questioned – hadn't moved an inch.

"Tough call," he said. After a moment, he let his attention drift back to the second suspect. "Let's keep an eye on this one. He looks hungry. See if you can bribe him with something to eat. The other one says they're brothers. Use that."

"He looks like he's gonna cry," Sitwell said. Coulson wasn't sure if it was meant as a joke or not. It really could have gone either way.

Still, Sitwell turned and left, presumably to find a sandwich tucked away somewhere. Coulson stayed, watching both suspects carefully. When they'd set up base, they hadn't set up with the intention or expectation of having to take prisoners. They had no holding facilities at all. They were set up to be mobile, able to move in and out quickly. After getting rid of the crowd of locals, scaring them off with warnings of radiation, and even making some of them shower for effect, they hadn't expected to see anyone else around until they had already carted the 084 away.

They hadn't expected the 084 to be impossible to lift, and they hadn't come with equipment capable of cutting through solid stone.

Coulson had watched as the two men tore through the base, taking out more than half of his men before reaching the 084. He still didn't know what he had expected to happen, but he knew they had both expected it as well. He had seen the moment they both realised that whatever it was they had expected, nothing was going to happen. He'd seen mission failures before, and usually the suspects fought until they were completely overpowered. They at least tried to get away. He'd never seen anybody just give up before.

That was what worried him.

He needed to know what they knew. And he knew they knew something he didn't. Something about the object in the ground. They knew where it came from and what it was for.

"There's a town nearby, isn't there?" he asked anyone who cared to listen.

"Yes, sir. About fifty miles to the east," one of the computer techs said.

Coulson looked over at the computer bank and tried to think. That was another thing that bothered him. The 084 wasn't giving off any kind of detectable radiation, and yet nothing seemed to work around it. And everything had got even worse just before the two strange men broke into the facility. None of their electronics worked properly, all behaving as trying to work with a giant magnet attached.

"Check around for any unusual reports going back 24 hours before we registered impact," Coulson ordered. "Police, hospital, word on the street. I want to know everything."

"Yes, sir," the tech said, already trying to fight through the interference to start trawling through recent records.

"I don't think that object's the only 084 we're dealing with," Coulson said quietly.

Sitwell returned a moment later, holding a heated microwave dinner in his hands. Coulson looked at it and sighed. He hated these remote missions. There were so few resources to barter and bribe with.

"Still want me to try that one?" Sitwell asked, nodding to the second suspect.

Coulson looked at him, sitting on the floor with his knees up to his chest. Sitwell had been right. He hadn't just clammed up because his mission had failed. He was deep in despair.

"Yeah," Coulson said.

He stayed where he was, watching Sitwell take the meal into the room. The suspect didn't even acknowledge Sitwell's presence, but that didn't exactly seem surprising anymore.

"Hey," Sitwell said, dragging the chair over to the suspect. "Brought something for you."

He put the meal down on the chair, and sat a plastic fork down next to it. The suspect still didn't even look up. He just stared at his boots, like he'd been doing ever since Coulson came out to watch him.

"You know, my boss sent me in here to bribe you," Sitwell said.

Coulson shook his head and tried not to laugh.

"But something tells me that's not gonna work, is it?" Sitwell asked.

Still he got nothing.

"So, I'll tell you what," Sitwell went on, undaunted. "I'm gonna leave this here for you anyway. And if you decide you want it, maybe you'll also decide you want to at least tell me your name? Maybe tell me your brother's name? I'll take either one."

He waited, and still got nothing.

"Nice talk," Sitwell said, before turning to leave again.

"That guy needs to be on suicide watch," he said after making sure the door was shut.

Coulson sighed. They didn't have those resources. They didn't even have locking doors for their holding rooms. There really wasn't a point, when their holding rooms were plastic sheets and PVC pipe, originally designed to be observation rooms for the 084.

"This sucks," Coulson said, hating the entire situation. He'd rather been in Malibu, dealing with Stark than out in the desert dealing with this crap.

"Should we arrange for transport back to DC?" Sitwell asked.

"I don't know yet," Coulson said, shaking his head. "I kind of wish they'd try to escape, so we could follow them and see what they're up to. They're never going to talk."

He was usually right about these things. He knew he was right this time.

After twenty minutes of watching neither suspect do anything, Coulson shook his head and admitted defeat. "I'll be in my bunk. Come get me if anything happens."

"You got it, Phil," Sitwell said.

Coulson's "bunk" wasn't even enough to be called that. They had a single bus parked outside, with enough bunks for twenty people to sleep in. It was just enough for the personnel to sleep in shifts. There were still a few bunks open near the back, and as Coulson took off his jacket and hung it up on the metal frame, he didn't even think he'd be able to get any sleep. The entire mission had got under his skin, and had really started to go wrong at the convenience store the night before he even located the object.

Standing in the narrow aisle, Coulson looked down at the empty bunk with its scratchy grey wool blanket, and for the second time in an hour, wished he was back in Malibu.

"You think they fell out of the sky with it?" Barton asked suddenly, making Coulson actually jump.

He looked up, surprised to see Barton in the bunk above the one he'd chosen for himself. Coulson had called Barton out on this assignment himself, though he still wasn't sure why. All he knew is that he'd had a feeling that Barton would be useful.

"I don't know," Coulson answered tiredly as he finally lay down on top of the blankets. "At this point, I wouldn't be surprised about anything."

He could hear Barton rolling over on the bunk above. "I mean. I was watching those guys from up in the picker, and it was like they were laser guided. They knew exactly where to go."

Coulson had noticed that too.

"And there was also the rain," Barton said.

"What about it?" asked Coulson.

"I look at the forecasts. There was no rain in them today," Barton said.

"Weather men have been known to be wrong before, Barton," Coulson reminded him, feeling like he was at a slumber party. He just wanted to get some sleep, but Barton apparently had other plans.

"There was no rain in them because today's high was twenty eight degrees," Barton said with a certainty that Coulson couldn't ignore.

Because Barton had been right. It had been cold all day, because the skies were mostly clear. The little bit of precipitation they'd seen early in the day had just been minor snow flurries that didn't even stick to the ground. And even as Coulson walked out to the bus, his shoes squelching in the mud, Coulson could see the stars above. But it was warmer than it had been all day. At least twenty degrees warmer, and in Coulson's experience, the air didn't tend to get warmer after nightfall.

"What time did it start raining?" Coulson asked, feeling like he might have been remembering wrong.

"About twenty seconds before Pinky and Perky stormed the castle," Barton said.

Coulson remembered it that way too. "We're dealing with more than one 084," he said, wishing he hadn't been right about that too.

"Bag and tag, or catch and release?" Barton asked.

Coulson sighed. "I don't even know anymore," he said tiredly. "But Barton."

"Yeah, boss?" Barton asked curiously.

"Shut the hell up. I'm trying to sleep."

Barton laughed, but said nothing further.

hr

Loki looked at his hands. He'd been looking at his hands for longer than he could remember.

His hands were as they'd always been; his nails trimmed and clean. Scars and callouses from years of training in the ring. Nothing about him had outwardly changed at all.

But his thoughts kept drifting back to what had happened on Jotunheim. Not just going there when they shouldn't have. Not just starting a fight they shouldn't have. He still saw the look on the frost giant's face, just as confused and thrown off guard as Loki had been when instead of black frostbite crawling up his arm, his arm turned blue and rough. It was skin like a frost giant. Loki had killed the one who grabbed him out of terror, worrying the curse might consume his entire body if the creature had held onto him much longer. But as soon as the frost giant fell, the blue faded, slowly and evenly as if it had never been there.

Even now, he expected to see it come back.

And then there was Mjolnir's presence in the desert with them. Odin had obviously cast it down after Thor, but he had cast no such token after Loki. The hammer was Thor's, and Thor's alone. And now, it had been a beloved prize to be reclaimed, once Thor had proven his worth. But what of Loki? What prize had he to claim?

Nothing. He had no prize, because he knew Odin had sent none after him. He wondered if Odin cast him out because he knew of the curse. Surely, Heimdall had seen it, and would have passed it on even if Odin had not been looking.

Had he been cast out for good? Exiled from the Realm Eternal, as all frost giants had been? Did it truly make such little difference to Odin that Loki had been cursed, and wasn't actually one of the savage monsters Odin had once sought to destroy?

Sitting there, in his plastic prison, Loki knew he had been cast away and forgotten. Thor might find his worth, but Loki never would. He had lost that worth the moment he let the frost giant touch him.

Loki ignored the food brought to him by his jailer, knowing he didn't even deserve that much. If he was truly a monster now, perhaps he deserved to starve, just like the rest of them on their own realm. Frost giants had no place in Yggdrasil. And neither did he. If he were any less of a coward, he would do what was right for the realms, and throw himself onto a blade.

Instead, he sat in the corner against the walls, picking at his thumbnail until his skin turned red and raw, while the light slowly rose outside. He could hear the camp waking around him, but he ignored their noises. Sooner or later, someone would come for him, and maybe then Loki would steal one of their weapons and end his curse. But nobody came. Instead, the camp erupted with a sudden excitement that died down just as quickly, leaving the air even quieter than it had been before. Loki realised, after a moment, the excitement had died down because the soldiers must have left. He wondered what might have drawn them away, but didn't have the willpower to get up and try to see.

hr

The realm Heimdall had taken them to was not the realm Sif had heard of in stories. They had been told that Thor had been banished to Midgard, but Midgard was a greener realm than this. If not for the chill in the air, Sif might have thought Heimdall had made a mistake, and sent them to Muspelheim. But this was not that realm either.

She looked at her companions, able to see them thinking the same thing as she. But they had come to find Thor, and demand answers from Loki if he had not already fled elsewhere, so they began their journey. Heimdall had told them little of where to go or what they might find. Twice in as many days, they had committed an act of treason in Thor's name, and while Heimdall had been willing to help in his backwards way, he had not helped as much as he could have done.

"There is a town to the east," Hogun announced, peering off across the washed-out landscape.

"Then we head east," Sif declared, already making tracks in that direction.

The other three followed her lead. They walked across the desert with swift purpose, watching for anything that might have stood out either as a threat, or as a sign of where to find Thor. But it was just a desert. Nothing attacked them as they made their way across it, eventually coming to the small town made of strange buildings. The roads within the town were all a smooth, solid stone, while the buildings were squat and square, and made of a variety of materials.

The people of the realm were also dressed strangely, wearing no armour or furs to protect them. But they kept their distance from the Asgardian warriors, moving to the other side of the street and pulling their children near.

Much had changed on Midgard, it seemed, but at least they still knew to fear their gods. That much pleased Sif, even if nothing else about this morning had.

Together, the four of them walked through the streets, but there was nothing anywhere that suggested Thor or Loki were in the town. Sif had expected to be able to follow a trail of destruction and spilled ale, but there was nothing of the sort. The town was quiet, even though the day was was drawing on.

Stopping in the road, Sif looked behind them. When they had arrived in the town, they had seen the townsfolk out on their business. But now the streets around them were empty.

"Something's wrong," Sif said, tightening her grip on her glaive.

Volstagg and Fandral looked behind them as well, seeing for themselves what Sif had seen.

"Does this feel like a trap to you?" Sif asked, almost eager to show the mortals what their gods were capable of.

As the four of them stepped closer together, a large black horseless cart turned one of the corners ahead of them and stopped, keeping a distance between it and them. The side of the cart then opened, and a man in black clothing stepped outside.

"Lower your weapons, please," he said through a device that made his voice louder.

Rather than lower her glaive, Sif raised it, ready to strike. The others did as well, all turning to face the man who spoke to them.

"We've evacuated the area, and we'd like to avoid any damage. We don't want to fight you," the man called toward them. "But we will defend ourselves if you force us to. We don't want that."

He lowered his device and began walking forward without showing any fear or hesitation. Sif braced herself for a fight, ready to strike him down if he attacked first, but he stopped several feet away from them.

"We just want to talk," he said. He held up his device, showing it to them. "It's not a weapon. I promise. Here. Take it."

He held it out patiently, until Fandral finally stepped forward and snatched it away. Sif watched from the edge of her sight as Fandral inspected the device. Suddenly, it let out a screeching wail, and Fandral threw it to the ground, where it lay silent once again.

"It's a siren," the human explained. "I should have warned you about that. Sorry."

He didn't seem sorry. He seemed almost smug. Sif glared at him, still holding her weapon ready.

"We're looking for our friend," she said. "He came here last night."

To her surprise, the human nodded. "Thought you might be. Why don't you come with us? Maybe help us figure a few things out?"

"You will take us to Thor?" Sif asked, looking back at her companions warily. They seemed even less willing to follow this human than she was, but if they knew where Thor was, they might find it easier to take him home if they didn't have to slay an entire town to do it.

"Yeah," the human said easily, nodding again. He seemed to be listening to something they couldn't hear. "Tall? Blond? Works out a lot?"

Sif didn't know what the third descriptor meant, but she nodded at the first two. "Yes, that's him," she said.

The human took a step back toward his cart. "Come on. We'll give you a lift."

He didn't wait for them after that. He turned his back and returned to his cart, stepping back inside. Rather than follow him, Sif looked to her companions, hoping they might have something intelligent to add.

"He seemed nice," Fandral said instead.

"We should go. He says he'll take us to Thor," Volstagg agreed.

"It could be a trap," Hogun said.

"And they could have food," Volstagg argued.

Sighing and shaking her head, Sif followed after the human and left the other three to bicker their decision out for themselves. She reached the cart, watching as one of the men in front twisted to reach behind him and open a door. Cautiously, Sif inspected the machine before she stepped inside. The seats were made of smooth leather, and the ceiling and floor covered in a fine grey wool. There were straps on the seats, which Sif ignored, assuming they were there to detain prisoners.

"You will take me to Thor?" she asked, looking at a small yellow light in the middle of the cart's ceiling.

"Just you, or are your friends coming too?" the human asked her.

Sif looked out the front window, surprised to see the other three had already made up their mind and were walking toward the cart.

"All of us, I believe," she said.

She looked around the cart again, realising that though it was big, there were not enough seats for the four of them. Behind her seat, there was an open cargo hold, so Sif swiftly climbed over the back of the seat to make room for the men. As the three of them climbed in, causing the entire cart to rock back and forth and squeak ominously, the two humans in front watched each other nervously. One of them said something Sif couldn't hear over everything else, but the other shook his head. Sif wished the others would shut up for three seconds so she could hear what was being said, but they were too busy arguing about Volstagg taking up too much space, and Fandral's sword being in everyone's way.

They would never find Thor, Sif feared. Not if this was how they planned to search for him. They had come to this realm just as unprepared as they had been when they went to Jotunheim the day before, and it was clearly a mistake they would never learn from.

Before everyone was even settled properly, the driver of the cart began taking it down the smooth stone road, through the town and beyond it once more. Sif watched suspiciously as they left the town behind, travelling back toward where Heimdall had taken them.

"Are we your prisoners?" Sif demanded.

The man on the right – the one who had first spoken to them – looked at her through a looking glass attached to the front window. "That depends. Have you broken any laws?" he asked.

Sif didn't know how to answer that. She didn't know the laws of the realm. "No," she said, not wanting to admit to anything she may not have even been aware she had done. "What of Thor? Is he your prisoner?"

"We have him in detainment. His brother as well," the human said. "If you're here to bail them out, we'd be willing to work with you on that."

"You have Loki as well?" Sif asked, somehow surprised to hear that. She had expected Loki to have left Thor behind. Loki had his magic, and could have travelled anywhere he liked. That he was still on this realm with Thor began to make Sif wonder what she hadn't yet been told.

"Loki? Is that what he's called?" the man asked.

Sif snorted, surprised. In front of her, the other three laughed openly.

"If you didn't know that already, then perhaps not," Fandral said.

Watching the man in front change his demeanour as subtly as he did made Sif realise that she was not the only one to be missing information. The humans had not been informed of certain things either.

"What do you mean?" the human asked.

"If you've had no demands from their royal highnesses, then perhaps Heimdall dropped us in the wrong place," Volstagg said.

"Surely it's some jest. Loki has them in on it, do doubt," Fandral suggested. "You know how he is."

The man in the front seat shook his head. "I don't understand," he said.

Neither did Sif.

hr

He could hear their laughter from across the camp, recognising Volstagg's booming voice in an instant, though he couldn't hear what they were saying. Not that it mattered. Loki knew they were there for Thor, and Thor alone. Wishing he could just disappear into the shadows, and knowing he'd never be able to again, Loki turned his back toward the door and tried to ignore the sounds of his friends approaching the plastic building.

"So, this is Midgard?" he heard Volstagg say.

Loki could hear a rising confusion from the soldiers at the camp, but he stayed where he was. Nobody was there for him, so he would simply stay well out of their way. Unless they weren't there for Thor at all. The images from Jotunheim still burned in Loki's mind, and a treacherous thought crossed him that maybe his friends were there to kill one more monster before returning to Asgard.

If that were the case, who was Loki to stand in their way? Perhaps, once they told Thor, he would even help them. Thor, who had once vowed to hunt every last monster down and slay them all. Surely, he wouldn't mind one more monster added to his list.

He could hear the man called Sitwell, and his companion, explain the situation to Sif and the Warriors Three. They claimed that neither Loki nor Thor were actually being held prisoner, but Loki suspected that was only because had they wanted to, they could have both broken out and fled at any time. Loki probably should have wanted to, he knew.

Why Thor hadn't fled, Loki wasn't sure. Loki didn't even know what he was still doing there, besides waiting for someone to come in and slay him. He looked at his hands again, tracing his thumbs over every scar, expecting to find hard ridges under his skin, but finding none. When Thor's voice joined the conversation, Loki brought his knees up to his chest and waited. Finally, when the door to his own cell opened, he listened to the approaching footsteps, but did not turn around.

"Loki, we're going," Thor announced.

It wasn't what Loki had expected, but he supposed he should have. "Fine," he said.

It was a few moments before Thor responded. "Get up. We're going," he said.

"So go already," Loki grumbled.

He was surprised when Thor hauled him up by his arm. He was more surprised by how much he felt it; how much it strained his shoulder in a way it never had. If this was how all mortal bodies behaved and reacted to even the slightest abuse, it was truly no wonder they were mortal. Loki rolled his shoulder to try to ease out the ache from being wrenched to his feet, and turned to see Sif glaring at him from the door. He expected her to say something, to spit vitriol and venom at him, but it never came. It occurred to him, standing with both of them looking at him as they were, that if Odin did know about whatever had cursed Loki, he had not shared it with them.

"So that's it, then? He's changed his mind and allowed us to go back home, has he?" Loki asked bitterly.

The sudden uncomfortable look on Sif's face said it all. Odin had not sent them to this realm. They had defied him to fetch Thor, and it was written plainly across Sif's face as if in black ink.

"Of course," Loki said, sitting back down on the floor. "Let me know how it goes, then. I'll be waiting here with bated breath."

"Loki," Thor scolded, pulling him back up by the same arm. Loki pulled away, swinging his arm wildly to get Thor to let go of him.

"Go. Who's stopping you?" Loki asked.

"I will not leave you here, Loki. Our friends have come to take us home," Thor insisted.

Loki looked at Sif again, and the way she still glared at him. They had never been overly close, but the look on her face was anything but friendly toward him.

"Do you truly believe that?" Loki asked Thor. "You saw the runes and the stave just as plainly as I, did you not? Worth is having to be rescued now, is it?"

"I have waited. I have been patient. It's what father wanted. He will have seen that," Thor insisted.

Loki looked past Thor and Sif to the larger room beyond his cell. He could see the Midgardian soldiers growing tense, their hands gravitating toward their small weapons at their waists. Knowing what would happen if the humans drew their weapons, Loki threw his hands into the air and shook his head. "Fine. Whatever. I don't care anymore."

He waited for Thor to accept his victory, which he seemed oddly reluctant to do at first. Finally, he nodded and turned, walking out of the cell and into the room filled with ancient machines. "How far from here is the Bifrost site?" Thor asked commandingly.

"About fifteen miles," Sitwell responded, giving Thor an obviously fake smile as he clapped him on the arm. "Come on. We'll give you a lift."

Loki could see it in his, and every other human's face. They expected nothing to happen, just as Loki did, though perhaps for different reasons. Loki had said nothing to Sitwell, of who they were or where they had come from. Sif and the Warriors Three appearing as they had would have surely made the humans curious, but Loki could feel the scepticism coming off of all of them in waves.

Not knowing what else to do, Loki shook his head and followed the others back outside, where they all were getting back into the black cars the soldiers drove. Picking his ride based off of the car Sif wasn't getting into, Loki let himself into the back of one of them and waited to be proven right.

The soldier driving this car wasn't one Loki had seen before, but he seemed wary enough to avoid trying to spark up a conversation. Eventually, Sitwell also climbed into the empty seat in the front, taking the time to secure the seat strap over himself.

"Anything we should know to expect?" Sitwell asked over his shoulder as they started moving.

Loki shook his head, looking out the window at the muddy, trodden camp. "I don't expect anything to happen at all," he said grimly.

He said nothing else as they drove through the desert toward the Bifrost site. As everyone else got out to go stand in the sand, Loki stayed where he was, watching the affair with a wilful detachment. This was a waste of their time, and he knew it. If Sif and the Warriors Three had come to Midgard without Odin's blessing, they were likely to be in just as much trouble, if not more, as Loki and Thor already were.

First, Thor called for Heimdall to open the bridge, but a predictable silence fell after. He looked up at the sky, his hopeful expression turning to an angry glare.

"Heimdall, I know you can hear me! Open the Bifrost!" Thor shouted to the sky.

Still nothing. Loki watched as the soldiers shared confused looks with one another, while Sif stepped forward and took his place.

"Heimdall, let us pass. Open the Bifrost!" she shouted up.

Loki rubbed his forehead wondering how much longer they would continue to convince themselves Heimdall would let them back. For all they knew, he was facing his own treason charges for letting them pass in the first place.

It was a thought that should have raised Loki's spirits, if from spite if nothing else. But knowing that he was trapped on Midgard with Sif for all eternity did little to ease Loki's mood. If anything it was a bleak reminder of how badly they had all run afoul of Odin's laws.

Loki wondered whether Odin would wait to father another son to take Thor's place, or if the deed had already been done. Laughing in despair, Loki covered his face with his hands and ignored the sounds of Thor and Sif shouting over one another to be heard by a gate keeper that likely was not even there to listen.

The humans let the charade continue for another quarter hour, until their leader – the man who had attempted to question Thor – stepped in and tried to put an end to it. No doubt, because he was getting tired of listening to them shout.

"Heimdall is there. He can hear us; this I swear. Something is preventing him from answering," Sif insisted.

Loki snorted. "Yes. Odin," he said to himself, knowing none could hear him.

"All right," said the humans' leader. "What do you expect will happen? What are we looking for?"

Before any could answer, the sky lit up as a bright white column of light crashed against the desert floor. Loki sat up suddenly, ready to leap out of the car and join the others, but when he saw the horned Einherjar helmet instead of his father's, he slunk back down into his seat and tried to hide. The humans all jumped back in fear and astonishment at the guard that now stood before them, but Thor and their friends foolishly stepped closer.

"By royal decree, the Bifrost is closed to Midgard," the guard announced. "For crimes of treason against Odin Allfather, the Asgardians on this realm shall cross Asgard's borders under penalty of death. You are to remain on this realm in exile, never to return."

"What?" Thor demanded. He rushed at the Einherjar guard, but before he got close enough, the guard was pulled back to Asgard, leaving only the shield knot in the sand as any indication he had been there at all.

–

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	3. Chapter 3

The thing about 084s was that they were unknown. That was their entire deal. Having seven, and for a brief moment, eight confirmed 084s in an area of about ten square miles was more than Coulson had been prepared to handle. The column of white light, and the magically appearing and disappearing Dungeons and Dragons character in the middle of the desert was enough to convince Coulson that he was dealing with something from another world.

As the rest of the agents scrambled to contain the scene, making sure none of the ialiens/i pulled a fast one, Coulson stared up into the sky. He thought he might see some sort of space ship high above, but if it was there, it was too high to be seen with the naked eye.

But what Coulson really wanted to know was why, of all the planets in all the galaxy, did the aliens choose to drop their criminals off on Earth?

Unable to sufficiently determine whether or not any threat remained above, Coulson forced his attention away from the sky and toward the chaos around him. Thor stood in the middle of the scorched markings in the sand, screaming rage up at the sky. His friends had bunched close to him, their weapons ready to attack, while many of the agents had taken cover behind the cars and now had their weapons pointed at the alien visitors. Looking around, Coulson realised for a moment that the sixth of their number wasn't present, and he hadn't been for the half hour Thor had spent shouting up to the sky before the blinding white light shot down and silenced everyone. Just before he was about to radio a look-out call in, Coulson spotted Loki in the back of one of the cars parked nearby, paying no attention to anything that went on around him. With all six accounted for, he knew this would be the best time to try to wrangle them back to the base.

"I think maybe you folks ought to come back with us," Coulson said, trying to sound helpful. "Seems like we have a lot to talk about."

Thor turned on him, angry and tense, and clearly about to strike the first person who pissed him off. "To be your prisoners?" he demanded.

"I don't think whatever planet you're from is within our jurisdiction," Coulson said. He didn't expect any laughs from that, and was unsurprised to only get an angrier growl from Thor. "But it seems like you're all new here, and if I had to guess, you don't have anywhere else to go."

Thor's friends began to let their guard down slightly, and Coulson knew he was hitting the right nerves. "We just like to know who's on our planet, and that they know all our rules here."

And, he didn't say, that they weren't going to bring some kind of alien plague to the planet. There were contingencies in place for it, but none of them had ever been run before. That this was going to be the first was not an uplifting prospect – especially when they hadn't known to run them until several days after first contact.

But he was almost surprised when Thor nodded slowly, seeming to understand at least some of the implications of what Coulson had said. But if this was a punishment for something, perhaps it shouldn't have been surprising. Especially if they thought they might get time off for good behaviour.

Getting the alien visitors rounded up was easier after that. This time, Coulson's men even managed to take their weapons, transporting them in a separate vehicle just in case. Coulson stood in place, watching as everyone else packed into the cars to return to base, and pulled out his phone. Fury was on speed dial, and like always, answered before the second ring.

"What have you got for me, Coulson?" he said down the line.

"Sir, we've got a protocol three out here. Class one," he said.

"You told me yesterday it was inert," Fury said.

"That was when there was only one," Coulson said. "Six more in the last twelve hours. And these ones are sentient."

There was a brief pause while Director Fury issued the order over the network. "Containment teams are on their way. Have your men set up road blocks until backup gets there. ETA: six hours."

Coulson looked out over the sprawling desert, knowing there was going to be no way to contain everybody. "Yes, sir," he said. He waited until the line went dead on Fury's end before hanging up and walking toward the nearest car with an available front seat. He made sure the back seat was empty before picking up the radio from the dash.

"This is a class one protocol three. Anyone not transporting guests back to the facility or working on research is on containment. Nobody in or out of Puente Antiguo," he said, letting go of the call button while he made his next decision. "Lethal force if necessary."

There would be casualties from this, and he knew it. But there would be more if some kind of alien virus did get out into the rest of the world. Coulson drove to the facility in a tense silence, following behind a car with several of the alien visitors. Part of him expected the car to swerve off at any moment as a violent fight erupted, but it never happened.

At the facility, Coulson broke off from the rest, ignoring the alien-wrangling as he trotted inside to the research banks along the outer wall of the main building. There were only two people left, both working furiously at their terminals as they tried to to the work of eight.

"What have we got?" Coulson asked, trying to see through the warped images on the screen. The interference was getting worse.

"Hospital report from two nights ago," the lower agent reported, referring not to his screen, but to something he had written out by hand. "John 'Thor' Doe was brought in with an unidentified male companion. They were found wandering in the desert, after being hit by a car."

Coulson tried very hard not to sigh. "Who brought them in?" he asked.

"Doctor Jane Foster, Ph.D," the agent said.

Coulson did sigh. "Of course she did."

hr

Jane was furiously packing what little she had left to pack while she waited to get through to Culver, but got only a busy signal every time she tried. In more than ten years, she had never got a busy signal trying to get through to Culver, and she didn't even have a laptop to check online for problems that might have been affecting the university, and the wireless data in the area was so spotty, her phone couldn't even establish a connection.

"Damnit, what the hell?" she said, gaping at her phone as it once again gave her the repeating, monotonous tone.

"I'm telling you, it's a government conspiracy," Darcy said unhelpfully from where she sat on the sofa, playing with her phone.

The worst part was Jane was starting to think she was right. She looked up, ready to ask Darcy to go to the library to check for local news in West Virginia, when the words stuck in her mouth like glue at the sight of a black SUV pulling up outside.

"Oh my god," she said instead, dropping her phone to her side.

"What?" Darcy asked.

The man getting out of the SUV and walking toward the building wasn't Agent Coulson, but he was definitely with SHIELD. He let himself in, took off his sunglasses, and walked straight toward Jane.

"Doctor Foster?" he asked.

"Who wants to know?" Jane asked, feeling like SHIELD didn't deserve anything without a fight.

"Agent Jasper Sitwell. I have a few questions about the other night," the agent said.

"Oh, really?" asked Jane. "You steal my stuff, and then you decide to ask questions? What, you couldn't get my equipment to work?"

Darcy laughed, somewhat undermining Jane's rage.

"Well, to be honest, we haven't even had the chance to look at any of it yet," Agent Sitwell said, as if that was supposed to make her feel better. "But I understand the night before last, you and your colleagues took two men to the hospital. One of them had been hit by a car."

Jane couldn't believe they'd found that out. "I didn't mean to!" she insisted. "We were observing an event, and then there was light, and all this noise, and–and–suddenly, he was just there. And then she tasered him," she finished, nodding over to Darcy. "Actually, he was fine until then."

"Good. You do remember," Sitwell said.

Jane could have kicked herself.

"Well," she said. "Now that we're on the same page."

"I need to know everything you know about them. Anything they might have said to you," Sitwell said. It didn't sound negotiable.

"Uh," Jane started, trying to find a way out of this. "Well, they didn't say much, actually. Thor was just kind of shouting nonsense until Darcy tasered him. His brother didn't really say anything at all. He was kind of out of it."

"Thor said he owned a satellite," Darcy said, continuing to be unhelpful. Jane turned to glare at her, but she wasn't even looking up at them. "And then the other one flashed us all. They're both pretty cut."

"Darcy!" Jane scolded.

Darcy finally looked up. "What? You weren't gonna tell him, and I'm not gonna get in trouble for harbouring a terrorist or something."

"He's not a terrorist," Jane argued. She turned back to Sitwell. "He's not a terrorist," she repeated to him. "They were lost and homeless and needed help."

"Do you want that dude's shirt? I think his shirt's still here somewhere," Darcy said.

Sighing, Jane threw her hands up into the air and went to fetch the clothes Loki had left behind.

"You brought them here?" Sitwell asked, his tone suddenly tense.

Jane turned around, finding him already talking into his radio as he turned to leave the building. She watched through the bay windows as he returned to his car, coming back with a large plastic bag and latex gloves.

"Where's the shirt?" he asked quickly once he was back inside.

Jane pointed to the pile of clothes still in the crate, with Loki's sitting right on top. Sitwell bagged all of it, sealing it tightly.

"I knew it," Jane said, watching him carefully remove his gloves and shove them into a second bag. "They are aliens, aren't they?"

"You need to come with me," Sitwell said, his avoidance of Jane's question as good as an answer. "There was a third person with you. An older man. Where is he?"

"Long gone by now. He left early this morning to go back home," Jane said stubbornly.

"Damnit," Sitwell said quietly as he reached for his radio again. "Sir, we've got a containment breach. Possibly getting on a plane, and may already be airborne." He let go of the button and looked up at Jane. "Where's he going? What's his name? I need to know."

"I..." Jane started. "No."

"Tell me, or I will arrest you," Sitwell said.

"Then you're going to have to arrest me," Jane said.

To her surprise, Sitwell replaced his radio on his belt and grabbed a zip tie from inside his coat. He stepped forward before Jane even thought to step away, and turned her around with a forceful grip.

"Hey, what the hell! You can't do this!" Jane shouted.

She tried to fight against him, but he clearly knew what he was doing more than she did. He used one foot to separate hers, knocking her off balance while he pulled her arms behind her and cinched her hands together.

"It's incredibly regretful that you've made me do this, Doctor Foster," Sitwell said, starting to lead her toward the door. As they walked, he turned and faced Darcy. "You too," he said sternly.

Darcy jumped up, wide-eyed and frightened, and followed. "Erik Selvig. He's going to West Virginia. Please don't make me disappear forever," she said.

Jane gaped even as she was led out to the car in front of the old dealership. "Darcy!" she scolded.

Agent Sitwell put them in the back seat of his giant SUV, making sure they were buckled in before holding his hand out expectantly. "Phone and purse," he said to Darcy.

To Jane's astonishment, Darcy handed them both over, though at least not without looking a pained about it.

"Darcy!" Jane scolded again as Sitwell shut the door.

"What?" Darcy demanded. "Do you have any idea where we are? Do you know what happens when you piss people off in the desert? You wind up out in a hole where no-one's ever going to find you again. I don't wanna up in a hole!"

"You're not going to wind up in a hole. This isn't the Godfather," Jane argued, trying to wiggle out of her restraints and failing.

"No!" Darcy agreed. "This – whatever this is – is much worse. We're about to disappear like Erik's friend did, because you had to go keep Mister Hunky Homeless Guy's secrets!"

"I wasn't keeping his secrets!" Jane shouted back as Sitwell returned to the SUV and climbed into the driver's seat.

"Enough, ladies," he said calmly. "I do have duct tape. Don't make me use it."

Jane was fairly certain he was joking, but suddenly, she didn't have the courage to find out. Darcy had clammed right up as well, and it was only then that Jane could see how frightened Darcy was. She wasn't there for the research, or for new discoveries. She was there for an easy term, away from actual university life. The only reason she hadn't gone back to Culver with Erik was probably because her student loans were conditional on her spending the term in New Mexico as a research assistant.

As they rode out of town, and farther into the desert, Jane began to feel the full weight of the situation. She had been arrested, and hadn't even been told for what. And now they were driving out to God knew where, away from any civilisation. It was only as they left the barely-paved road for the dirt road that Jane realised they were going out to the crash site, and the plastic city the government spooks had built around it. As they pulled up through the perimeter, Jane realised that somehow, the area seemed less busy than it had been the night before, when she'd brought Thor and Loki out to apparently break in. Since they never made it back out, and Erik had refused to bail them out, Jane wondered if they were still there, handcuffed like she was, and being forced to answer a million questions.

Once they were stopped, and Sitwell got them out of the car, he led them into one of the portable buildings near the front. The inside was bigger than it seemed, since it connected on one side to one of the other buildings, and to the plastic corridors beyond that. She was surprised to see Thor standing nearby, discussing something intently with a dark-haired woman wearing actual plate armour. His entire demeanour changed the moment he saw Jane and Darcy being led in, and quickly forgetting the woman he was speaking to, Thor turned and stomped angrily toward Sitwell.

"Are they your prisoners as well?" he demanded.

Sitwell actually ignored him for the few moments it took him to pass off the plastic bag full of clothes to one of the other agents.

"Actually, they're under quarantine, just like the rest of you," Sitwell said calmly.

"Quarantine?" Jane demanded.

"Oh, great. Alien flu, now," Darcy said, waving her hands in the air.

A small part of Jane was pleased that Darcy had finally agreed that Thor and Loki were aliens. But that small part was vastly overshadowed by the implications of being kept under quarantine. Before she could ask any questions about any of it, Sitwell started to lead her away to an empty room, away from everyone else.

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After they'd returned from the Bifrost site, Loki found a quiet corner and stayed there, while everyone else rushed about in a panic. He ignored their panic, and Thor's moral outrage when the mortal woman was brought in. He said nothing to anyone as the soldiers around them made busy plans, quickly adjusting as new information came to them. Even as Jane Foster shouted from one of the closed-off rooms, Loki stayed where he was, out of the way and avoiding the attention of everyone else.

As the afternoon drew towards evening, more soldiers came to the camp, upsetting the balance even more. The air grew thick and noisy as orders were shouted and plans drawn. The new soldiers wore full-body yellow costumes, with clear masks covering their face. These soldiers weren't armed, and weren't there to fight; they were there to intimidate. But even as they made their way through the camp, issuing red tags for everyone to wear, Agents Coulson and Sitwell ignored them as they focused on another problem.

When Coulson crouched down in front of him, Loki barely even looked at him.

"Loki, isn't it?" Coulson asked, his voice strangely soft. It was the first thing Coulson had said directly to him, but Loki wished he'd just leave.

"Listen, I get that you don't want to be here," Coulson went on, ignoring the fact that Loki was ignoring him. "I really do. It sucks out here. I hate it too. We're gonna take you guys somewhere else for a while. It kinda sucks there too, but at least it's more comfortable. And quiet. Okay?"

Loki shrugged, not really caring either way. It didn't matter what they did with him, because nothing they could do would give him what he wanted. They'd just move him from one prison to another, until they could decide he was even worth keeping alive or not. The humans killed their gods, and by now, they had surely begun to realise where Loki and Thor had come from. It was only a matter of time before the humans decided to kill them as well.

At least in Loki's case, they'd be doing the realms a service.

When Coulson realised Loki wasn't going to respond, he stood back up and looked over to his companion and nodded. "Bring the bus around," Coulson said into his hand. Outside, a loud roar came down from above, growing louder and louder until it was stopped just beyond the building. Coulson looked back down at Loki and nodded his head toward the door.

"Come on," he said easily.

Loki didn't see much of a point to it, but he knew if he didn't cooperate, they'd just put him in chains and drag him out. He almost wished they would, but ultimately it seemed like too much energy to resist, so he slowly stood and followed Coulson outside. What Coulson had called a bus was a small airship, into which Thor and his friends were being led, as well as Jane Foster and her young companion. The pilots of the airship both talked quietly between one another as Coulson and Sitwell – both also wearing red tags, Loki noticed – ushered everyone into the airship.

It was just big enough to hold everybody, with a row of seats on either side. Thor's simmering anger did not escape Loki, nor did the unease and indignation of their friends. Unable to muster any such emotion for himself, Loki took a seat behind one of the pilots and stared at the scuffed toes of his leather boots – the only object he still had of Asgard. Suddenly, he hated to look at them. Thor had the promise of Mjolnir, and with it, his return. Loki had a pair of muddy leather boots, still stained with blood from Jotunheim. Almost expecting the mere thought of Jotunheim to bring forth his curse, Loki looked down at his hands, pressing his thumb into the palm of other hand. There wasn't a hint of blue, save for the shadows of thin veins below the skin of his wrists. Everything was as it was meant to be, even when nothing was as it should have been.

Once everyone was seated and the doors closed, the airship climbed into the air, ascending vertically with a fluid, practised motion, much like some of the smaller ships from Asgard. The women Agent Sitwell had gone to fetch both jumped in their seats and gasped, with the younger grabbing onto Loki's arm. He tried to push her off, but in the confined space, he only managed to push her into her companion.

"Sorry," she said quietly.

Darcy, Loki remembered. The girl with a man's name. She must have had terribly cruel parents.

Her parents, Loki could only assume, hadn't abandoned her to die in a strange realm. So perhaps not so cruel after all.

"You okay?" Darcy asked, still holding onto Loki's arm. He tried to shake her off one more time before giving up.

"As if you would care," he said bitterly.

She finally let go and tried to put as much distance between them as possible. Unfortunately, all it meant was that only their legs were touching.

The rest of the journey was travelled in silence; the humans too frightened to say anything, and Thor and their friends too angry and indignant to even risk uttering a word lest a fight break out. The saving grace was that the journey was short, and soon they were touching down again, this time on top of a building.

As they were led out of the airship and through another plastic-walled corridor, Loki thought the sun was in the wrong position. It had dipped far lower on the horizon than it should have, but he didn't have the time or the energy to contemplate that. Instead, he focused on just moving, wanting nothing more than to find some dark corner somewhere to curl up and hide from everyone else. As the plastic corridor gave way to solid, white walls and stone-like floor, it became clear that despite everything said, he was a prisoner, along with everyone else. They were led down a corridor by men in flimsy yellow armour, each being told to go to a separate cell. When Loki was shown his cell, he was almost glad to see it at least had a bed to sleep on. Thor, however, was less than pleased.

"This has gone on far enough!" Thor all but shouted.

Inhaling deeply, Loki stopped at the threshold, keeping his back to the inevitable squabble.

"You said we're not your prisoners, but I have yet to see evidence of that," Thor said.

"I assure you, this is just a precaution," Coulson said, staying surprisingly calm.

Tired already, Loki started to go where he was told so he could just sleep.

"Loki, do not go in there. We're leaving," Thor said, grabbing Loki by the shoulder and pulling him back. "Now."

He started to stomp back toward the doors they'd come through, but Loki held his spot.

"Leave me out of this," he pleaded.

Sif and the others were all standing stiffly, waiting to see what to do next. The humans had taken a defensive position, raising their weapons and ready to fire them.

"Thor," Coulson said calmly. "I know what this looks like. But trust me, this is for everyone's safety. Including yours."

"How is this for my safety?" Thor demanded, turning back on Coulson.

"We need to make sure that you don't have any," Coulson paused for a moment, before finishing tactfully, "illness that we might not be able to fight off. And the same for you."

"Like War of the Worlds?" asked Darcy meekly.

Loki had forgotten she was even there.

"What war is this?" Thor asked her.

Too tired for all of this, Loki sighed and went into his cell before the humans got bored and solved their problem with brute force. "Thor, shut up," he said. He even closed the cell door behind him, hoping it meant the rest of them would go away and leave him alone.

They didn't. He could still hear them arguing outside, with Thor throwing his demands around and the humans struggling to placate him. Not caring about any of it, Loki fell face-first onto the bed, finding it surprisingly soft. At least if he was going to be a prisoner, he would be a prisoner in relative comfort.

Not that he deserved the comfort. He had half a mind to roll off and throw himself to the floor, where he belonged. But he lacked the energy for even that much effort. Sooner or later, the humans would tire of him, and he'd be put out of his misery. He belonged to this realm no more than he belonged to Asgard. The humans would realise this, as his curse was sure to manifest and present him as a deadly monster. Loki was certain of it. Until then, he wasn't sure what else to do, other than wait for it to happen.

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They hadn't been trained for this. There were theoretical protocols in place for a first contact, but it had always been assumed that the first contact would either be a hostile attack, or a quick meet and greet before zooming back up into the stars. Somehow, ET sticking around and bringing his friends had never occurred to anyone.

Coulson didn't want to be at the front of an intergalactic war sparked by the death of some dumb kid who apparently got himself kicked out of the house, but containment was seriously becoming a problem.

"Tranqs. Now," he said as Thor's anger grew into rage as Loki locked himself into his room.

Solomon raised her pistol and fired the pink dart straight into Thor's side. He jerked suddenly at the impact, and as soon as he turned to see what had hit him, he fell gracelessly to the ground. His friends all jumped, startled at what had just happened, but Solomon raised her pistol toward them as well.

"I'll drop you just as fast as I dropped him," she threatened.

Nodding, Coulson motioned toward the doctors in biohazard suits, and pointed to Thor.

"Get him out of here," he said, wondering how this mission had gone so badly in so many ways.

It took three doctors just to lift Thor onto a gurney, so they could wheel him into the next empty room. After that, the rest of them – human and alien – went easily into their assigned rooms. Six aliens, two civilians, and four SHIELD agents took up nearly the entire ward, and as Coulson stood in the corridor, he wondered the best way to ease the situation.

"Get me a StarkPad," he said to one of the doctors. "Put some movies on it. Books, games. No cellular."

The doctor nodded behind his plastic face mask. "Yes, sir," he said. "Anything else before we get started?"

The only thing Coulson could think of was maybe a glass of scotch, but he knew he wouldn't get it. "Just the StarkPad for now. We'll start with me."

Nodding again, the doctor turned to leave the quarantine zone. Twenty minutes later, he returned with the StarkPad and a tray of syringes and cotton balls and a dozen other small instruments. Coulson was ready for him, with his jacket off and his shirt sleeves rolled up to his elbows. Using a tape recorder to take his notes, he took Coulson's temperature, swabbed the inside of his mouth, and drew what felt like about a half pint of blood. Once he had the bandage in place over the draw site, the doctor handed Coulson the StarkPad.

"You want to try our luck down the hall?" Coulson asked.

"Your call," said the doctor.

Coulson got up and led the doctor down to the other end of the quarantine zone. Knocking first on the door, he opened it, not terribly surprised to find Loki only halfway on the bed and staring at the tile floor.

"Hey," he said easily, trying to get Loki's attention.

Not for the first time, Coulson thought Sitwell had been right. The others were angry, but there was something wrong with this one, and he needed to be watched.

"Brought you something," Coulson said, holding up the StarkPad.

Loki barely looked up at him, but it was enough for Coulson to know he was awake and listening. He approached slowly, offering the StarkPad out, and waiting patiently for Loki to take it. Eventually, his offer was accepted, and Loki slowly reached out for it, barely looking at it before tossing it down onto the bed beside him.

"Something to do. CDC budgets don't really extend to TVs in all the wards," he explained, knowing Loki wouldn't understand. "But I meant what was said. Out in the hall, and before. We're gonna help you guys figure out what you want to do and where you want to go. You just have to stay here for a while. It sucks, I know. I'm stuck here too. So are Sitwell and Barton and Solomon."

Loki snorted derisively.

"This guy here's a doctor," Coulson said undaunted, nodding toward the man beside him. "He looks kinda scary, but we don't want him getting sick, and we don't want his sniffles to get you sick. He's here to take care of you."

He looked over to the doctor, wondering how much care he'd be able to give if they did wind up with a War of the Worlds scenario, with someone's common cold killing what Coulson was fairly certain was some sort of alien royalty.

"Do you mind if he takes a look at you?" Coulson asked.

"Go. Away," Loki said stiffly.

Coulson nodded. "Okay," he said. "Maybe later."

He turned, gesturing for the doctor to follow him back out to the hall. It had actually gone a little easier than he'd expected. Loki had taken the StarkPad, if nothing else.

"I want eyes on him at all times," Coulson said once the door was closed again. "I have a feeling we're going to be facing a war if anything happens to these people."

"Yes, sir," the doctor said. "Where next?"

Sighing deeply, Coulson considered that question. "My team. Then the civilians. Then the... rest. We end with Thor," he decided.

"I'm going to want backup with him," the doctor insisted.

"So am I," said Coulson.

He didn't need to explain the situation to his team. They knew these protocols, even if they'd never been formally trained on them. Quarantine was quarantine. They had their phones, and had all requested new chargers for them so they could at least keep up with the outside. That much, Coulson figured they deserved, but he wanted to see if he could get something more up to the ward to hold them over for the next two months. It wasn't going to be a fun time for anyone.

The women were a little more difficult, though the girl was marginally more cooperative. Once she found out she'd be stuck in a CDC building for the next two months, that cooperation vanished, however. She started shouting about hashtags and human rights, and only agreed to the blood draw when Coulson finally reminded her that she could very easily be having a killer alien virus incubating inside her.

Dr Foster was a nightmare. Coulson hadn't wanted this to be a prison situation, but Dr Foster changed his mind, and he immediately ordered her door locked when she tried to fight back and steal the syringe for the blood draw. Thinking on the safe side, he also ordered Ms Lewis' door locked as well.

By the time they got to the aliens, they were all too riled up to offer any cooperation. Their leader, an imposing woman named Sif, attacked the CDC doctor before the door was even fully open. She'd managed to pull part of her bed apart, and was using it as a weapon, swinging it at anyone she laid eyes on. Coulson didn't even have to give the order before Solomon opened fire, getting three tranq darts out before Sif finally went down.

For the safety of everyone involved, Coulson called it off after that. They weren't going to get anywhere with politeness, and taking anything by force or subterfuge would only make things worse. At this point, the only thing they'd be able to do was wait and see.

After everything was locked down, and the ward finally quiet, Coulson sat out in the hall with his back against he wall, checking his email on his phone. A few more StarkPads had been wrangled up, and after giving three of them to his team, Coulson figured he'd keep the rest of them as an incentive. Only people who didn't try to punch out the doctors would get them.

While Coulson played with his phone, Barton sat down beside him with his StarkPad, slowly setting it up and frowning at it.

"Why won't my email load on this thing?" he asked, showing Coulson the screen.

"No cellular," Coulson responded plainly. "Use your phone. Keep it on you at all times, and password protect it."

"It already is," Barton said. "So, what? I can't get online with this thing?" He held up the StarkPad questioningly.

Coulson finally looked over at it. "It should have some games and movies on it. It's for play. Not work."

Barton nodded and poked the screen a few more times. "Got it. What's the official story, then?"

Coulson shrugged and shook his head. "There isn't one, yet. Fury's still going with the satellite, but it's going to get out soon."

"Hence no cellular," Barton concluded. "Got it."

The light outside the window at the end of the hall was fading into dusk, though from his angle, Coulson couldn't see anything but cloudy sky. Sighing, he leaned against the wall and looked up at the ceiling. He thought of all the quarantine situations in this ward, and how many of them had ended poorly. Dying from an alien flu was not how he saw himself ending his career.

"Good news," Sitwell said as he stepped out of his room to join Coulson and Barton. "We caught up with Selvig. Bad news, it was a packed flight. Eight kids. They're opening up two more wards for quarantine and bringing them up here."

Eight kids. Christ. Coulson scrubbed his face with his hands and tried to think. "What's the spin?"

"Ebola. People are still pretty freaked about it, so it worked. The only one who gave us trouble was Selvig," Sitwell said.

"Why's it always the smart ones that are so stupid?" Barton asked.

Knowing he was right, Coulson laughed. Stark. Banner. Foster. Selvig. All of them people who had a special ability to get right under his skin and pull the calm right out of him.

"Yeah, speaking of smart people being stupid, did you get the message about Culver?" asked Sitwell.

Coulson looked up at him, already dreading the news. "Do I even want to know?"

"The Jolly Green Giant tore ass through the campus. Some Russian special-ops guy got killed. Romanoff was there, but she got to the scene too late," Sitwell said, scrolling through his phone as he read over the message.

"Nat?" asked Barton, looking up suddenly.

"She's fine," Sitwell said. "But apparently pretty spooked."

"Nat? Spooked?" asked Barton. "How bad was it?"

Sitwell handed his phone down to the two of them. A video had already gone viral, shot by some kid with his phone, showing the Hulk tearing apart an armoured truck.

"Pretty bad," Coulson said, handing the phone back. "Anything else this week, before it's over?"

"Stark's helping with the clean up in New York," Sitwell offered helpfully.

"Good." Coulson had no idea how this had become his life. Aliens, giant green monsters, evil attack robots. None of this was what he had signed up for. And yet somehow, it all seemed to fall under SHIELD's jurisdiction.

The three of them remained silent for a moment after that, save for the occasional beeping of Barton's game. Coulson was starting to think that maybe Loki had the right idea, and the best way to deal with all of this was to just lock himself away and get some sleep.

But that wasn't going to happen. Not with Thor waking up and pounding on his door suddenly, demanding to be let out. Sighing, Coulson got to his feet and put his phone into his pocket.

"I don't wanna deal with it," he said to Sitwell. "You deal with it."

Sitwell looked down the hall to Thor's room. "I ain't dealing with that. He can shout himself back to sleep."

Running his hand down his face, Coulson turned to make his way toward his room. "I'm taking a nap. Wake me up if any of them start killing each other," he said.

He left the other two in the hall to draw straws, or play rock paper scissors, or do whatever to figure out who got to shut Thor up. But as far as Coulson was concerned, he was officially off duty for the night.


End file.
